A weekend briefing by African
finance ministers at IMF/World Bank meetings in Washington attracted
modest media attention, but there was quiet pride in the way
representatives from tiny states like Cape Verde and Gambia were able to
claim concrete achievements in managing debt and public finances.

Developing countries from across
the world, including Africa, are portraying themselves as "innocent
bystanders" of the economic storm boiling out of Europe and the United
States, and have joined the chorus calling on the European nations in
crisis to bite the bullet of painful economic reforms.

"It is not easy, it is painful, and
we went through the pain, and the Europeans must be prepared to go
through the pain," African Development Bank President Donald Kaberuka
told Reuters in an interview.

He said the reforms needed in the
ailing southern European states involved the kind of overhauls of public
finances and labor markets and other structural reforms that African
nations -- with firm urging from the IMF and World Bank -- had tackled
over the last two decades and now had results to show for it.

Fund and Bank experts say sound
macroeconomic reforms and better budget management are some factors that
have helped propel robust growth in sub-Saharan Africa since 2000.

This has given the region one of the brightest outlooks of any region amid the prevailing gloom.

"The outside world still sees Africa of yesterday. We believe that this is Africa's time," Kaberuka said.

While acknowledging major
challenges on the continent -- huge infrastructure and energy deficits,
shortages of skilled labor and the risk of political flare-ups -- he
said the moment had come for what he called "a reprofiling of Africa's
risk".

The continent's risk profile had been grossly overestimated for too long, Kaberuka said.

"There are risks, the buffers built
before 2008 are weakened, inflation is raising its ugly head in some
countries because of pressure of food prices, we have residual political
issues in a few countries," he said.

And the continent had good reason
to worry about the threat of aid, finance, investment and trade flows
falling if conditions in the advanced economies worsened.

"But are we more risky than some of
these peripheral countries in Europe, which have 150 percent of GDP in
debt, 30 percent fiscal deficit?" Kaberuka asked.

"ALL HANDS ON DECK"

Arguing the change underway in
Africa was comparable to that experienced by India 20 years ago,
Kaberuka said aggregate economic fundamentals on the continent -- its
wide internal variations notwithstanding -- were something to be proud
of.

"An average African country would
now be growing at about six percent, we'd be having a fiscal deficit of
no more than 3 percent, debt no more than 15 percent of GDP," he said.

His biggest worry was not what was
happening in Africa, but what was not happening in the developed world,
"the inability or unwillingness of the rich countries to take the
decisions needed to return the global economy to growth momentum".

But he said emerging markets and
low-income countries, the Africans included, had a role to play in
trying to relaunch a new global growth momentum. "We have to get the
ship moving, that requires all hands on deck," Kaberuka said.

Investment in infrastructure in
Africa could help to rekindle aggregate demand for equipment and
products from advanced economies, which in turn would put idle
manufacturing capacity back into use, he said. This would make Africa's
infrastructure agenda part of the global recovery efforts.

Upgrading power and infrastructure
was critical to sustaining Africa's continuing rise and, while
connectivity in broadband Internet services remained a problem, the
telecoms sector on the continent was "exploding", Kaberuka said.

"There's room here for the private sector, returns are very high, cost of entry, very low, risks, very low," he added.

But Kaberuka warned the continent's
governments that if they wanted to avoid the kind of political
upheavals seen in North Africa and the Middle East, they needed to
ensure that growth was truly inclusive, and work to tackle inequalities.

"Beyond the jargon, all persons in the country must be seen to benefit, all sectors, all communities," he said.

(Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

Your message has been successfully submitted and would be delivered to recipients shortly.